Black Knights vs. Blood Knights

[najo]

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i always been playn as the undead never take any Ld test= -no reforming,always chasing and so on....
and none of the bastards i playd against ever corrected me

-.-

They are bastards!!!!

On a serious note, we still make frenzy, march and reform checks, and the rest when general dies is a Ld check. This is one of the reasons I get perplexed that a decent number of Vampire generals think our BSB is useless. I find the LD reroll very useful.

 

[najo]

All good points.

Another thing I've found with vamps is we have like 3 sorts of units. Most of which aren't the same as other armies. We really don't have anvils or hammers(Crypt Horrors aside) etc. I find what we have is:

1.Chaff (like most armies), consisting of wolves, bats, raise dead zombies etc
2.Tarpits, not to be confused with anvils. Tarpits are there to just lock up enemy units and try not to die to quickly, never relied upon to do anything, so skellies and zombies.
3.Bullies. Our bullies are our heavy hitters that most people would call hammers, used in conjunction with anvils. Seeing as we don't have good anvils (due to crumble) we only have bullies. They way I'd say they work is hitting units that are far beneath them so they can easily win. An excellent example of a bully is a blender lord, we never try to put him up against opponents characters, he is there purely to bully the hell out of poor old RnF troops..

We obviously chaff as per usual, but instead of setting up hammer/anvils, you just gum up the opponents good stuff with zombies and skeles then let the bullies run around taking off the (hopefully) inferior units that are not in combat (as the opponent has tried getting his heavy hitters in quick). Obviously mileage will vary depending on armies played.

But what I'm getting at long windedly is I find blood knights as fantastic bullies, just not good Hammers and I also don't believe they should be compared to black knights as they play completely different roles. One is a bully and should be hitting weak targets, the other is an elite tarpit/delivery system like skeletons but faster. They play different roles. One wouldn't compare varghiests and crypt horros would they? as they again play different roles.

Also as a matter of tactics, run blood knights with a varghulf. Varghulf goes in the front and tries to draw with static combat res (get a couple of wounds and thunderstonp to negate ranks and banner etc) get the bloods (or vargs) in the side for the sweet sweet gravy...

Cheers,
TheTrans

I agree with most of your points. I disagree with CH not being an anvil. They are a solid anvil, second only to breasts of nurgle. I get our crumble can cause them to come apart, but if used properly, that won't happen. I've had crypt horrors take a charge from a GUO and a plafuebearer block and hold out all game and kill the GOU and then only needing healing at turn 5, when the reinforcements arrived and help finish off the block. That's an anvil.

I think the issue is if you combo charge with undead, you need to really understand mathhammer and crumble. You have got to manage that. Generating CR is part of that. Minimizing CR is the other part. When we start crumbling and buffing back up with IoN it has to be on our terms.

Its is mastery of this aspect of our army that separates the vampire lords from the vampires. It's the trickiest part of our army to learn, as it's the most counter intuitive and abstract part. And it's probably the cause of half the misunderstandings and disagreements on this board, lol.

Any rate, solid points none the less.

 

[najo]

sword of might on kastellan always.
definite s6 at all times

But then he loses S7 on charge and we don't want the blood knights getting mired down in combat. They need to hit and break a unit.

 

[najo]

Still only LD 7 though.

I've found with Frenzied troops your best bet, rather than try and control the LD check, is to be aggressive with them so that in your turn you have multiple targets to charge instead of having only one or two targets at extreme long range.

That's good advice! Keep frontage small and run at an angle so your opponent can't take advantage too.

 

[TheTrans]

I agree with most of your points. I disagree with CH not being an anvil. They are a solid anvil, second only to breasts of nurgle. I get our crumble can cause them to come apart, but if used properly, that won't happen. I've had crypt horrors take a charge from a GUO and a plafuebearer block and hold out all game and kill the GOU and then only needing healing at turn 5, when the reinforcements arrived and help finish off the block. That's an anvil.

Sorry mate, may not of been clear, I was saying we don't have any anvils aside from Crypt Horrors haha, so we both thoroughly agree there

 

[Emicrania]

They are bastards!!!!

On a serious note, we still make frenzy, march and reform checks, and the rest when general dies is a Ld check. This is one of the reasons I get perplexed that a decent number of Vampire generals think our BSB is useless. I find the LD reroll very useful.

What march checks? We cannot march out of the general bubble ?!

 

[najo]

What march checks? We cannot march out of the general bubble ?!

Whenever an enemy is within 8" you have to pass a leadership check to march. Our undead units must be within 12" of general to march, yes, but if an enemy is march blocking we need to pass a leadership check.

Vampiric units can march away from general, but they can get march blocked too.

 

[Emicrania]

They are bastards!!!!

On a serious note, we still make frenzy, march and reform checks, and the rest when general dies is a Ld check. This is one of the reasons I get perplexed that a decent number of Vampire generals think our BSB is useless. I find the LD reroll very useful.

Whenever an enemy is within 8" you have to pass a leadership check to march. Our undead units must be within 12" of general to march, yes, but if an enemy is march blocking we need to pass a leadership check.

Vampiric units can march away from general, but they can get march blocked too.

Ops,forgot that too...